babalú archives

frequent topics

login and feeds

elsewhere on the net

The mystery of the empty Cuban raft is solved

Yesterday, we posted a photograph of an empty Cuban raft that came ashore in Cutler Bay, which we viewed as a reminder of the countless Cubans who have lost their lives in the Florida Straits attempting to escape the murderous tyranny of the Castro dictatorship. Today, we are happy to find out the occupants of that raft did not lose their lives and were actually picked up by a cruise ship that came across them days earlier.

Mystery of empty Cuban raft found on Black Point appears to be solved

The mystery of the Cuban raft found over the weekend near Black Point in South Miami-Dade appears to be solved.

The cruise ship Carnival Valor rescued four Cubans on Dec. 30 aboard a Styrofoam raft that appears to be the same one that washed up empty, sparking fears that its passengers had drowned.

U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Marilyn Fajardo confirmed Monday that the Valor picked up four Cubans and transferred them to a cutter, but added that officials were still checking whether the two rafts were the same.

A passenger on the Valor on Monday emailed El Nuevo Herald cell phone photos of the Cubans and the raft, which looked to be the same one that was found Saturday near the Black Point Marina in Cutler Bay.

The brief email noted the four rafters were picked up by the Valor at about midnight on Dec. 30. The U.S. Coast Guard was “a few miles away and was witness to the rescue,” it added, and the four “were returned to the American Coast Guard on Saturday 5 January.”

contact us

how to register

Due to a recent Wordpress upgrade, a critical plugin that prevents spam registrations from bots has stopped working. We have suspended automatic registrations for new users until the plugin has a new version compatible with Wordpress. To subscribe to the blog, send your request to SUPPORT at BABALUBLOG dot COM.